


The Value of Patience

by lellabeth



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Can Bitty's Mom adopt me, Feelings, Insecurity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7871056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lellabeth/pseuds/lellabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He reads the comment once, blinks, reads it again.</p>
<p>
  <i> Loved the update!! Will we ever see Jack’s gf in a vid? I bet they’re soooo cute together! </i>
</p>
<p>Bitty swallows twice. He rubs his index finger against his thumb and taps his foot against the thin carpet under his desk. The cursor flashes at him, waiting for his reply. He stares at it until his eyes blur so much he can’t see it move any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Value of Patience

**Author's Note:**

> sooo.. my first ever Zimbits fic. pls be kind?
> 
> hugs & love to B for looking this over for me!

It starts with a comment on one of his videos.

He finishes replying to someone who’d made one of his pies and loved it, leaving a comment about how it tastes best with fresh Georgia peaches. There is a sharp pang in his stomach, thinking of how the oven at his parent’s house always burned the pie crust just a little right toward the top and how Coach always insisted on having that slice. He doesn’t get homesick often, but he feels it right then, so sharply he has to take a few shallow breaths through it.

By the time he moves on to the next comment, he feels a little frayed around the edges. He reads the comment once, blinks, reads it again. That pain is his stomach is back, but it hurts more this time.

_ Loved the update!! Will we ever see Jack’s gf in a vid? I bet they’re soooo cute together! _

Bitty swallows twice. He rubs his index finger against his thumb and taps his foot against the thin carpet under his desk. The cursor flashes at him, waiting for his reply. He stares at it until his eyes blur so much he can’t see it move any more.

His chair rocks slightly as he stands up and slowly walks over to his bed. The covers whisper as he pulls them back; the room lit only by the screen of his computer.

Bitty doesn’t want to see that screen anymore, doesn’t even want to think about it, so he pulls the soft, worn cotton of his comforter above his head.

In the little cocoon he’s made for himself, he does not sleep. 

 

x

 

When he wakes the next morning, sore-eyed and tender-hearted, he does what any Southern boy does when he doesn’t know what to do next.

It takes four rings for his mother to answer the phone.

“Hi, baby,” she says, in that voice she only ever uses for him, and his teeth sink into his lip. “You’re not gonna believe what Maisie Simmons has done this time.”

“Hi, Momma.” His voice cracks right in the middle, brash and a little ugly.

“Eric?”

“I miss you,” he says, and god, he really does, like a piece of him is gone.

“I miss you too, starshine,” his mom replies. It makes him think of bedtime stories, her hand in his, and homemade lemonade in the summertime, and he wants nothing more than to be back in her arms. He makes this awful choked noise, some gasping thing that’s loud and echoes all around him.

“Hey,” his mother says, soft and quiet. “What’s goin’ on?”

Bitty tilts his head back, refusing to let the tears burning his eyes fall. “I don’t know anymore, Momma. I thought I had what I wanted, but I don’t know if I do, or maybe I do have it but I don’t want it like this, or…or... I just- I wish I could see you.”

“You know I’m always with you,” she says, faint as a whisper but full of conviction. “Now, about this not having what you want - is this, uh. Well, is it about- Oh, dang it.”

Bitty’s lips curve, despite the sadness still sitting in his chest. Dang is about as close as his Momma gets to a curse most days. Then she says something that makes his heart beat hummingbird-quick.

“Is this about Jack, honey?”

“Why would it be about Jack?

His mom huffs a small laugh. “You think I can’t tell that there might be somethin’ goin’ on when I got two boys at my table with pink cheeks both eatin’ one-handed? Or when those same two boys ride out at night to ‘go explore the park a little’? Eric Bittle, you must think your momma was born yesterday.”

Bitty bites the inside of his cheek before he replies. “You never said anything.”

“I’d never seen you look so happy,” she says, voice almost sad. “I figured you’d tell us when you were ready, and I was happy to wait for it.”

He closes his eyes.

“You don’t seem so happy now, honey.”

So he tells his Momma everything - most of it, anyway - about dates indoors, about hidden kisses and holding hands under tables, about how none of those things hurt before but they seem to be hurting now, about how some days he wakes up and wonders what’ll happen if Jack never wants to tell anyone about them, and through it all she listens.

By the end, she sighs along with him.

“You’ve gotten yourself into somethin’ real complicated here, Eric. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, because Lord knows I accepted a while back you were your own person now, but it’s a lot for anyone to be keepin’ to themselves, baby. Especially for someone who’s spent most of their life incapable of keepin’  _ anything _ to themselves”

He rolls his eyes. “Momma.”

“Don’t think I can’t hear the sass in your tone, Eric Richard.” She clucks her tongue, but when she speaks again, her voice is back to being gentle. It feels like a balm to everything in him that’s overtired and overthinking. “You have to remember that this is just as scary for Jack as it is for you. This is just as complicated for him, too. And he’s a big guy, but that doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doin’ with stuff like this. Probably the opposite. Everythin’ for him is moving at a hundred miles an hour at the minute, with the NHL and graduating and moving away from everyone. You can’t blame him for tryin’ to find his feet in all that mess before he makes a whole new mess and drags you into it with him.”

Bitty thinks of how stressed Jack sounds when he answers the phone sometimes, how there were permanent worry lines around his mouth last time Bitty had Skyped with him. He hates this, because he’s never been mad at Jack before - he doesn’t even think he’s mad  _ now _ , not really. Just… hurt, a little. “Do I look past it, Momma?”

“Oh, honey, I can’t be the one to tell you that. You’re too good to be someone’s secret, but I don’t think Jack sees you as his secret at all. And sweetheart, it wasn’t just you who was walkin’ round here with their face in a permanent smile when y’all visited. You just have to decide whether that feeling outweighs the other one. You gonna let that darkness edge out all that light?”

“I love you, Momma.”

She huffs again, but this time it’s a little wet. “You have no idea, baby.”

 

x

 

Bitty doesn’t play coy with Jack. He doesn’t give him the silent treatment or one-word replies. Instead he asks if Jack could please come on Skype that evening so they could talk about something, and there’s a small amount of relief at the way Jack sends back a message agreeing almost immediately. 

When Jack’s webcam clicks on, Bitty almost changes his mind about talking. Jack looks rundown and worn down, dark circles under his eyes, jaw shadowed with the beginnings of a beard even though it’s nowhere near playoffs. Bitty wrings his fingers together on top of his desk and doesn’t miss the way Jack’s eyes dart down to them.

“What’s up?”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to say  _ nothing, I just miss you _ , but he thinks of his Momma telling him he’s too special to be shut away, and he knows he can’t  _ not  _ say anything. “I got a comment on one of my videos today,” he starts. Jack’s expression is confused, but Bitty goes on before he can speak. “Asking if I was going to feature your girlfriend in any of my videos.”

He can feel the wistful set of his own smile, the sting of wet in his eyes. He blinks hard, just in time to see Jack’s face fall.

“Please don’t think I’m angry.” He has to stop the  _ sweetheart _ that tries to attach itself to the end of that, because it doesn’t feel quite right just now. “I’m not. I’m just a little…” He waves his hands next to his face. 

“Yeah,” Jack replies quietly, looking ten years older than he is. “Me too.”

They share a moment of eye contact so melancholy Bitty has to look away. He’s never seen Jack’s mouth twisted down like it is now, not even after they lost their playoff game that time.

“Please don’t think I’m pressuring you to come out, because I’m not, Jack, not at all. That’s a personal thing, maybe the most personal thing there is or ever will be, and I would never ask you to share it just because I wanted you to.” 

“ _ Do _ you want me to?”

Bitty slumps back in his chair, blows out a breath. “I don’t want you to have to do anything like that. I think it’s damn stupid that you’d even need to. Look, I want to be able to go out to dinner with you and kiss you across the table, and I want to be able to bring pies to your practices and have your smile be sweeter than anything I’ve ever baked. I want to hold you and have your arm around my shoulders and I don’t want to live out a relationship behind closed doors whenever no one’s looking.” He closes his eyes. “I want to love you without wondering if I need to feel ashamed for it. I don’t want to be a secret.”

He runs a hand over his face. 

“But I don’t want you to have to make some press statement and give a dozen interviews. I know it’s more intense than I can probably imagine. I know the pressure you’re under.  I know you’re trying to make your own way and I’m fit to burst with pride over it. Our relationship shouldn’t depend on any of this. It  _ doesn’t _ depend on any of this. I guess I just felt… insecure, maybe.” Bitty’s shoulders slump. “That all sounded kinda stupid, huh?”

“No,” he hears, deep and almost fierce, and he looks up to see Jack sitting close to his computer screen. “It’s not stupid, Bittle, not even slightly. You deserve to feel all those things you talked about. I want to give you those things - I  _ will _ give you those things.”

“Yeah?” Bitty asks around the lump in his throat. “I don’t need it to be now, or even soon. Just - someday, right?”

“Promise you, Bits. I promise you.” Jack lets his eyes look over Bitty’s face, over the drying tear trails, over the blotchy cheeks and red-rimmed eyes, over the small smile at the edges of his mouth, and he can’t hold back a small smile of his own. “Mon lapin.”

Bitty laughs, and then he stares at Jack and lets his smile grow wider. “Yours, sweetheart.”

 

x

 

Nothing changes after that.

Or maybe it does, because now Jack has a new celebration after every goal or assist he makes.

Bitty watches Jack spin away from goal with pride in his chest, and that only grows when he sees Jack kiss his crooked fingers and raise them toward the sky. 

Bitty feels the warmth of it on his lips, on his forehead, on his cheek. 

He feels that kiss everywhere.

And maybe nothing’s changed or maybe it has, but in any case, it’s enough.

It’s enough.


End file.
